Reading ‘School Clothes’ at A Dream Deferred

Black students have always found ways to demand a full and empowering education, and Dr. Jarvis Givens wants this generation of young scholars to know their intellectual history and run with it. In School Clothes: A Collective Memoir of Black Student Witness, Givens assembles two centuries of narratives from Black students and scholars to “bring the complex dynamics in Black student life to the fore.”

On the main stage at the 2025 A Dream Deferred™ and HBCU Conferences, Givens—a professor of education and African American studies at Harvard University—was joined by a group of students from Long Beach Unified School District. Over a full academic year, the students joined an after-school reading group to discuss School Clothes and share their own reflections on navigating the classroom. The aim was to help a generation coming of age see themselves as the inheritors of a long struggle to learn freely and have their contributions recognized.

“For so long, Black students have been written about and held under a microscope,” Givens said. “And rarely with any attention to their voices and their agency.” Long Beach’s Black Literary Society, a space outside of the normal school day for students to discuss the book and connect personal stories to long-hidden history, served to build confidence in students’ ability to contribute to intellectual life, not just respond to whatever is on the formal curriculum. “We’ve been able to talk beyond the surface level,” Givens said. “We’ve been able to get into the nuances.”

In front of nearly a thousand educators, counselors, and college officials attending A Dream Deferred, students from Long Beach took turns reading passages from School Clothes and explaining why they resonated. One young woman connected with the story of Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine, taking inspiration from the courage of someone so young to leave a mark on history. 

Another student mentioned the story of Noyes Academy, which was founded in 1835 to educate both Black and White students in the North; the leaders of the school faced violent resistance. In Givens’ telling, it serves as a reminder that Black students have always fought for the right to be educated and have always held education as the keystone to freedom and equality.

The reading group and the message of School Clothes are part of a broader effort at Long Beach Unified to celebrate Black excellence and encourage students to see themselves in the tradition of “fugitive learners,” explained Dr. Pamela Lovett, excellence and equity coordinator for LBUSD. “It’s really based on the needs of our students,” she said. “The students are really guiding a lot of the work.” She said there’s enormous value in having a space where students feel free to share their experiences and opinions in response to a scholarly work, bridging personal narrative and sharp analysis. “We have to dig into rigorous texts and help our students develop intellectually,” Lovett said.

All of the students said School Clothes had broadened their view of American history and driven home how powerfully Black Americans have asserted their right to a free and full education. “By listening to their voices, I was reminded that Black students were always agents in their own stories,” Givens said.